Dr Adel Zakhary

If you have teeth that don’t meet each other at the front, and you wonder what you should call it properly to your dentist , this is for you. The normal relationship Normally, teeth are designed to meet each other as previously described . This relationship is what is known as a positive overlap of teeth, and dentists know it by its stage name - overbite. Its when the tip of the bottom front tooth strikes the back of the upper front tooth. Under this configuration, the teeth are said to be in contact and further, are able to incise (hence the technical name of the respective tooth - incisor ) or bite food off.  Is it an overlap, or do they touch? Sometimes, teeth can struggle to reach their proper position and touch each other, for example, when a physical obstruction prevents them from doing so , or if adenoids or other systemic diseases exist. When this occurs, we ask our patients to report if the teeth could in fact touch each other on closing on the back teeth. With the sign

Braces.. the food magnet. That pretty much sums up the article. Just kidding! Actually, its a little more complicated than that, but we will see to it that you grasp why the practice of regular brushing needs to be enforced, why cleaning is important with braces, and why not cleaning your teeth can hurt your cosmetics on the long run. Like any rough object, it catches stuff.  Because braces are rice grain sized, its very difficult to clean them. A brace is composed of brackets that are attached to the teeth (or glued on, if you will), and wires that connects these brackets in unison. When the bracket is attached to the tooth, the back of the bracket has these sharp objects called (hooks), and wings. It is probably what grazed your lips, or hurt your cheeks  if you never had braces on before. Now when you think about that rice-grain sized object, think about how easy is it for food to get stuck to it.  The rough edges collect the food over time, and the food starts to build up over the